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Trading Set up

Platforms & Hardware

When you start out any good performance PC will work fine as long as it has a good sized monitor, but you will find pretty soon that need more monitors to watch multiple markets and time frames. I went from one monitor to two, then three which was the limit on my dell desktop, using a notebook as back up for web and email.

However when I decided to make this my career and business I invested in a Falcon Trading System that is designed for professional traders, each system has eight 23 inch monitors, I love this system, I have the same set up at home and in my office. Be careful as it takes a while to be able to handle so many monitors and even now I still get in a mess with too many things going on at the same time.

Other things to think about are back up systems should you have a hardware or internet issue and how you track trades alerts when you are mobile. I use my system on my iPhone and iPad but also have a 4G card in for my notebook so that I can be connected any time of the night or day if I need to.

In terms of Platforms, I don’t really have an extensive experience, you hear about Trade Ninja, Trade Station, Think or Swim form TD Ameritrade etc.

I learnt to trade on Trade Station as that is what they teach at OTA, however I ended up not using it as I messed up my account set up, you see you cannot became a pattern or high volume day trader unless you have so many years’ experience so if you don’t quite get this right when you set up your account bang, you get barred from trading for a long period of time as you are not qualified which is a pain in the *** so be careful how you set up your account as and maximize your trading experience even if you have just been managing a few small trades etc. or you will end up having issue really getting stuck into trading when you are raring to go.

Since I was locked out of my Trade Station account I started to use Think or Swim which I like very much and since I set up the accounts correctly I had no problem trading with the account and have used it ever since. There is no doubt Trade Station has better charting but Think or Swim is much better for Options Traders, I always meant to go back to Trade Station but when you get a Platform set up, all your charts, work spaces etc. and you customize just the way you like it is a pretty big deal to make the change, so I have never got round to moving back to Trade Station.

There are a couple of extra things to consider why I have not moved back to Trade Station 1. I feel that my money is pretty safe with T D Ameritrade since they bought Think or Swim which after some of the disasters with commodity brokers over recent years, this is important and 2. There has been a lot good development of the Think or Swim Platform by TD Ameritrade.

At the end of the day, Platform is personal preference and a chart is a chart and you have to be able to read a chart correctly which ever Platform you use, the rest is down to the look and feel, bells and whistles that you prefer.

Work Office

Work Office Set Up

Home

Home Office Set Up

Setting up your chart and trading platform is a little like the trade plan and log, over time you will find that you like to work with, I have different set ups for different markets with a range of different indicators. Day trading I use the same set up every day, by asset, here is how it looks: